Mesopotamia / Kings /Assyria / Middle period / Kings /
Ashur-uballit 1
Akkadian: ashshur-uballit(Dead 1318 BCE) Ruler of Assyria ca. 1353-1318, 35 years.Assuming power, Assyria largely had the role of a vassal state, subject to both Mitanni and Babylonia. By his own efforts, as well as fortune, he formed the first Assyrian empire, being the first effective ruler of the Middle Assyrian period.First he managed to free Assyria from the supremacy of Mitanni, with the aid of the Hittites. This alliance would prove short lived, as he later set out to have the kingdom of the Hittites, as well as the kingdom of the Hurrians defeated. In Mesopotamia, he succeeded in sacking Nineveh, but of greater importance over time became the alliance through marriage with the ruling family of Babylonia: allowing the Assyrian takeover several generations later. An faster effect was to secure less influence by Babylonia over Assyria.He had contacts to Egypt, corresponding with contemporary kings (Amenophis 3 and Akhenaten), even sending a representation of the Assyrian goddess, Ishtar, to the Egyptian court.He was succeeded by his son, Enlil-nirari.

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